(FOUR CORNERS THEME) (CROWDS CHEERING) (MAN SPEAKS ON MEGAPHONE IN MANDARIN) REPORTER: Thirty years ago the people of China
dared to hope for a democratic future. – Millions of Chinese for the first time,
maybe the last time in their life. A taste freedom in the air of Beijing. – But on the night of June 3 1989
the People’s Liberation Army turned its guns on the people. – We didn’t think they’d use lethal weapons. I can’t imagine anyone in the West using
live ammunition against their own children. (GUNFIRE AND SCREAMING) – We realised it’s a war.
They’re out to kill us, not to scare us. (GUNFIRE) – Thousands have been killed and injured,
victims of a leadership that seems determined to hang on to the reins of
power at any cost. – Three decades on the Chinese government is determined to erase the memory
of the Tiananmen massacre. – We were so young and we
experienced such a violent killing. We were not allowed to openly shed a tear
or light a candle for the dead. – The momentous events of that spring were
captured by the ABC in a trove of historic footage. – The tanks, the armoured personnel carriers … – We watched in horror as the full force of the Chinese military crushed the democracy movement. – Tonight on Four Corners we look back
at the brutal crackdown on the people’s power revolution and
how it changed China forever. (CROWD SPEAKING MANDARIN) – You know, the government has suppressed
news, has suppressed the truth. Of course we are struggling for
democracy, for science, for law (RADIO REPORT) China has not seen student
demonstrations on this scale since the chaotic cultural revolution of the
1960’s. Some observers see the current wave of unrest as the greatest challenge
the Communist Party has had to face since it came to power 40 years ago, and the
students say they will not give up until their demands for political reform are met. – We really needed freedom, as a young
generation, and we believed that democracy can bring freedom. We realised the government cannot do it
without any pressure so I think we must go to street, keep the government under
pressure and let the government do some political reform and bring
democracy and freedom to China. – There was sense of hope. We were hoping
that with our participation we can alter history to a much brighter direction. We want the Chinese Communist Party to fulfil their promises to the Chinese people. – Wu’er Kaixi was a very charismatic leader who, when he spoke everyone stopped
and listened. He was very much in demand. People crowded around him like a
rock star. He was definitely one of the prime movers of the whole movement
towards democracy – People who took to the street in 1989, we
didn’t do it because o f hatred, because of anger, because of grievances. We did it
because of love, because of hope, and even in our trust in the government that it
would reform itself. We felt that this is the time, finally,
that we could speak out and express our youthful idealism to to do something for
the country and to help it to do better. – The event that led to the protests, the
catalyst, was the death of Hu Yaobang, the former General Secretary of the
Communist Party who had been purged some years before for his liberal ideas,
but they were the kind of liberal ideas that appealed to the students – a greater
say for the people, an end to corruption, a greater degree of democracy. The students latched on to the
death of Hu Yaobang as an opportunity to vent their
feelings about corruption, about a lack of say in the
government of the country. – Directly from Deng Xiaoping himself. He
asked the People’s Daily, which is the party newspaper, to print an editorial
declaring the students movement “counter-revolutionary rebel”. That’s a
very heavy labelling. When we heard that we were very, of course, angry but I think,
reasonably saying, scared at the same time. Six of us called hunger strike. Wang Dan and I
are among them, and then it was responded well. The students – initially two thousand,
then it became three thousand students joining the hunger strike troops. (RADIO REPORT) Hunger strikers accompanied by perhaps ten thousand supporters occupied Tiananmen Square in the
centre of the city. – We must stay here to force the government to answer our questions and our demands quickly. – The students felt that we are using our precious life to beg for the government
to come out and talk to us and listen to us. – I did not want to go on hunger strike. I
don’t agree with that measure of activism, so I joined that picket line right at the foot of the monument to the people’s heroes. Sometimes we would join hands, protecting the hunger strikers and the
student leaders who were sheltered, who were in the tents. We made sure the traffic for the
ambulances would be clear for them, and also we wanted to protect
the students and the leaders from foreign media. (AMBULANCE SIREN) – (During) these days in Beijing when you heard the
siren of ambulance that ache everybody’s heart. When you hear the ambulance you
know another hunger striker must have passed out. – There were, at times, almost a
million people on Tiananmen Square. There would be (an) ambulance moving in and
out every five minutes, for example. It was seemingly chaotic, but at the same
time the students had to keep order because there were no police. – That’s what I did, I stepped in, so I was
not on the hunger strike list but I was coordinating the effort through this
broadcast station on Tiananmen Square called “the voice of the student movement”. – The announcer would tell us, “please do
not sleep in, this is not a very good image for the students. Please pick up
your rubbish and we have to keep the square clean and orderly.” – In the past, the citizens just keep silent. They never
speak to the government. They never dare to speak to the
government, but now they stand up and came to speak the truth to the government. – You see the whole city, people
really full of hope, a lot of people they had come out. You never see this before.
People living in fear suddenly just realised that people had come out. They don’t really
live in the shadows. They come out with hopes and that they’re really trying to
get this country changed. Millions of Chinese for the first time, maybe the last time, in their life taste freedom in the air of Beijing and
we were all bound by this common ideal in a dream for a
better China. In that brief period the whole world was riveted by China. – So another situation is the President of Soviet Union, Gorbachev, visited Beijing, and
there’s quite a lot of journalists in Beijing. and we think there’s a golden
chance with the light of the whole world and no way won’t China be a democracy. China’s president Yang Shangkun and
an army of government and Communist Party officials greeted the Soviet
leader as he and his wife stepped down from their chartered Aeroflot jet. – The students protesting on the square, they blocked quite a bit of the ceremony,
the pomp and ceremony that Deng (Xiaoping) wanted to put on for Gorbachev. They couldn’t use Tiananmen so Deng was furious. I think it was probably very significant in that it
would have hardened his resolve to remove the students in any way that was necessary. (REPORTER) How long have you been fasting?
– About five days. – And how long will you continue to fast? – I will continue until our victory. – There was a faction within the Communist
Party that was sympathetic to the student movement and the students’
concerns. That faction was led by Communist Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and because of this division within the party, China was indeed paralysed for a number of weeks. (RADIO REPORT) Zhao, Premier Li and two other senior members of the ruling Politburo, visited hunger strikers in hospital this morning. There are more now than a thousand
hunger strikers in hospital and another two thousand in Tiananmen Square. (TV REPORT) The leaders expressed
great concern for the health of the students and said they understood the
patriotic zeal behind the hunger strike. – The government agreed to a televised
dialogue which was an enormous concession between Li Peng, Premier Li
Peng, and several of the students led by Wu’er Kaixi. Wu’er Kaixi turned up in his
pyjamas. He’d been in hospital, the effects of the hunger strike … – He thought, you know,
maybe this meeting is significant. It’s a turning point. It’s the point that the
government is going to say “OK, we heard you”, but no. Li Peng came in, gave us a
monologue of lecture. – He tried to scold us and the criticise
us and decided this is a turmoil that makes everything worse, and you have to
withdraw from Tiananmen Square and he didn’t want to listen any concrete
policy suggestions from our side. – I was sitting there in my hospital gown and
there was an oxygen mask and oxygen tubes into my nose and I would say, you
know, this is not the dialogue or meeting we were anticipating. This is government
putting up a gesture to blame the students. So this is not going to lead to
anything we want – Yes I was firm. I was standing on my
position strongly as my role demands me to at that time. – I was quite naive because we didn’t
know the true face of the Communist Party. We never realised that this party
will do anything to defend their power. (RADIO REPORT) Beijing television viewers were
treated this morning to extraordinary images. There was Zhao Ziyang, boss of one of
the world’s most powerful political machines, the 48 million strong Chinese
Communist Party, down amongst the squalor in Tiananmen Square pleading
with students to end their protest. – This was the last time, of course, that Zhao Ziyang was seen in public, and we were told by sources that we
had, very close to the Communist Party and to the government of China, that Zhao Ziyang had indeed had been purged, that the hardliners had won the struggle
for control of China and that the reformers, those who sympathised with the
students, had lost. (RADIO REPORT) The Chinese government has decided to impose martial law in some areas in Beijing starting 10 o’clock Saturday morning. The order says the move is
taken in light of turmoil in the capital, and it’s aimed at restoring
social order. – They (told us) all that we are going to Beijing to be enforce martial law. Even though I graduated from the military
course, still I was (a) student. I have sympathy with students. Some officers like me still had sympathy with students. They think democracy is right, we need democracy.
(At) that time I think a lot of soldiers, officers, agreed with students. – It’s not Chinese to use the enemy against the people, against the students. (PEOPLE CHEERING AND CLAPPING) – We never expected the people would
stand up to protect us, and that night, when the government
issued martial law, a lot of students, including me, said that may be the
last day of us. The government will send the military
troop to Tiananmen Square. – Martial law troops trying to move in to
remove the students, and then all the people say “don’t!” ” You are supposed to be
the People’s Liberation Army” and with years of propaganda the PLA, People’s
Liberation Army, are the son and daughters of the people. – Tens of thousands of troops were surrounding Beijing. I was not really afraid because I experienced
people’s will every day, you know, such overwhelming support
for the students. – All the people, get up, come here, stop the
service. – I (was) sitting in the truck with a lot of
soldiers but the people and the students were nice. They just told the truth and that
they want democracy, they just just tell us and what happens in Tiananmen Square, so they just
try to ask to go back, don’t go to Tiananmen Square. (SOBBING) – Yesterday is good. We support them. – What’s amazing to me is that the protests in 1989 brought out the best of human
spirit among Chinese. The totalitarian regime corrupts people’s mind, morals and distracts mutual trust. But Tiananmen, during that brief period,
it was so peaceful. People were just so friendly to each other. – Everything the students and the other protesters, because they were joined by many others, did was under very close surveillance. We learned later that the authorities had turned the road traffic
cameras on the protests and protesters; cameras that had been supplied by
Australia and Germany mainly, and they were photographing them using those
cameras. That all of the restaurants around Tiananmen, where the students
used to gather, had been wired for both sound and in many cases for vision as
well. (RADIO REPORT) Good evening this is Radio Beijing’s Capital service. Massive demonstration erupted again Tuesday as Beijing entered its fourth day of martial law.
The troops ordered to carry out martial law are still stranded in the suburbs of
Beijing. (CROWD CHANTING) – We do not like Li Peng. We do not like the the leadership now. We do not like Deng Xiaoping. (REPORTER) What’s going to happen in China? – We do not know yet, but we’re
hoping for the good. We do not like (when) students die. They
are the hope of China. (CROWD CHEERING) (RADIO REPORT) In Tiananmen Square, where
this crisis began with student protests for democratic reform, the numbers have thinned considerably and one report says that at least 7,000 students have left the Square which now looked for the world like a refugee camp. (CROWD CHANTS) – The crowds were dissipating,
everyone was saying it’s all over, then the students decided to build what they call the
“goddess of democracy”, so it was a plastic and styrofoam replica of the Statue of
Liberty which of course is this very heart of democracy, and here it was about to be taken off
to the symbolic heart of Chinese communism. (REPORTER) The students have staged yet another act of defiance, bringing the statue several kilometres to their heartbeat of freedom, Tiananmen Square. – In the back of your mind
all along there was a sense of “I can’t believe they’re doing this.” The fact that there were hundreds of thousands of troops ringing the city but they were still prepared to do this, I mean it’s an extraordinary, for want of a
better word, provocation to actually have a Statue of Liberty going down to the
heart of communism and erecting it in front of Mao Zedong. (CROWD CHANTING) – An army unit made yet another attempt to
get to the square and push the students out. This time the unit ran. They didn’t
come in vehicles or anything, they ran four kilometres into town from the
fringes of Beijing and of course by the time they got there they were exhausted
but they also ran into people, not students, but into the people who didn’t
want the army turned against the kids. (CROWD SINGING) (REPORTER) Amazing as it may seem, people’s power has turned back the People’s Army for the second time in two weeks. (APPLAUSE) – Even though there was tension in the air
there was no sense that, you know, within hours of that moment there would be carnage. (CROWD SHOUTING ANGRILY) – The troops had got to the points that
they were directed to reach and stopped and waited for the order to go in. Deng Xiaoping is the only person who can
make that decision at that time. He ordered massacre. – I arrived about 4 p.m. on Tiananmen Square
and I can smell tear gas in the air. At that moment, it was the first time for me,
I realised this is a different evening now. – I thought this is the time for me to
fight and to die as a revolutionary hero then I hopped on a bike and cycled all
the way to the square, but the students and the civilians of Beijing were busy making roadblocks to try to stop the military trucks. It was like going
through a war zone (SIRENS) (GUNFIRE) (RADIO REPORT) Tanks are rolling in, down the main thoroughfare towards Tiananmen Square. There’s sporadic shooting, automatic weapons opened up, people were diving for cover We can spot ambulances going in in a very like
fashion; sirens blaring, taking people, taking bodies, taking injured people. (SCREAMING) – We thought they would use riot control
weapons; rubber bullets, hoses, water, all that sort of thing. We didn’t think
they’d use lethal weapons. Looking at it, I suppose, from a Western military viewpoint I can’t imagine anyone in the West using live ammunition against their
own children. – At one of the big intersections an APC
just ran over a young girl on a bicycle. And it was charging down anything and
everything; barricades, people, and the protesters had put up this steel
barricades, and at first this APC got stuck and the crowd started gathering
around it, and hurling insults and rocks and sticks and everything, and then it revved
up and powered off but it only got a few meters and it really stopped. The crowd climbed up on top of the tank and were
bludgeoning the people below and they were wrecking the tank with iron bars
and wooden bars and bricks and things like that. I try to tell my colleagues, my soldiers, don’t open fire but I can’t stop the others, I just only have a few soldiers, because I know it is going to be murder. – We run into the hospital and there’s so many
people already there, and there’s so many people already dead there, and there’s so
many people wounded, lying on there. We followed the doctor, we went to the
room, there’s an emergency room, we’re walking there, totally shocked.
The floor (with) bodies there. More than 100 bodies already there. – We were surrounded.
It was like a war zone. We were hearing gunshots and seeing flares all around us – Some students brought
back some blood-stained shirts describing the killings. Then that’s when
we realised it’s a war. They’re out to kill us, not to scare us. All the lights were switched off and we’re just waiting. We knew they were going to ambush us. All of a sudden all the lights in Tiananmen Square were turned on then immediately we heard this deafening noise that was the loudest noise I’ve ever heard in my life . The tanks were rolling in from all directions. I saw them flattening the tents on their way. I saw with my own eyes the collapse
of goddess of democracy statue, then the tanks stopped at some point and the
soldiers were hiding behind them, waiting. – We wanted to leave there orderly, but that’s impossible I knew I’m telling the world what’s
happening in Tiananmen Square and I knew I could be killed, jailed, and any of us talking to the camera could be in trouble, but we did not hesitate to tell the truth to the world. – The soldiers, just with their guns, and they have big sticks. (They) pushed us, beat us, I shouted “get away, get away!” – You think anybody got killed?
– Of course. I’m sure, very sure, many students were killed. – How do you feel right now?
– Feel right now? I’m very angry! (RADIO REPORT) Trucks crammed with troops backed up as they waited for orders to move into the square. At each intersection shots
sprayed from the vehicle. – The entire square was like a military compound.
There were dozens and dozens of vehicles, tanks, and APCs lined up. Lots of troops,
helicopters coming and going … A column of tanks and armoured personnel
carriers was coming out of Tiananmen Square, right past our hotel, suddenly
stopped. There was a man holding shopping bags standing in front of the tank, the lead tank. This man then climbs up on to the tank and squats down and starts remonstrating with the tank commander. He then gets back down again.
The tank tries to move, it tries to manoeuvre around him and every time the
tank moved, the man with his shopping bags in each hand jumped in front of it. Four or five other people on the side of
the road rushed over, fearing for his life obviously, and rushed him off, took
him over the other side of the road and he disappeared out of sight and he
disappeared forever. He took a stand. It became one of the most iconic images of the 20th century, of all time. He has been an inspiration to so many
people. The most obvious thing is to think that you know he was caught and
captured and killed, but we’d all like to think that he melted away into the crowd
and he’s still out there somewhere safe. (GUNFIRE) – The whole international community pay attention to
us, but those people they sacrificed their life. Nobody know, even nobody knows
their name, so they are really the hero. – There was a list of twenty one of the
country’s most wanted, headed by Wang Dan as one of the students’ leaders. – And I also don’t think I really did a good job
to lead this movement, and why they put me on first, I don’t understand. – I was number two on the list. I
was not so much surprised and then I would probably
take it as a great honor to be on that list and then to be on that rank. – I was ranked number five. I was in shock but I was also profoundly proud of
myself because what I did, out of duty as a citizen, as a student, now it was
officially recognised by this government. It’s being very important. I have, at that
moment, a very strong sense of achievement. – The security forces were taking advantage of all the intelligence they collected for weeks. Photographs, names, addresses, everything else, and
coming around and demanding that the parents give up the student – knock on the
door at 2a.m., “give us your son, he’s wanted for crimes against the state,” and they’d take him off and as often as not but two hours, three hours later,
they’d come back and say he died either trying to escape or he’d fallen
downstairs or something. – Young people confronting lines of armed
troops, not in anger but in disbelief that an army could unleash force on
its own people with such cruelty. Thousands have been killed and injured, victims of a
leadership that seems determined to hang on to the reins of power at any cost. – In 1989 we were so young and we
experienced such a violent killing and witnessing or watching it and it’s
literally the killing of your peers, of your generation, but we were not allowed
to openly shed a tear, or light a candle for the dead and we carry this wound,
this open wound, up to today, 30 years later, and we (are) still not allowed to openly
talk about it. On the surface Tiananmen seems to be
totally remote and irrelevant to the reality of a rising China, but Tiananmen
remains the most taboo and most sensitive subject in China today. – They just try to cover up the truth. They don’t want any people to talk about this.
They just want people forget, to forget its truth. Every day I live in nightmare. Even now, I getting better, but I still dream of them. Some
people killed, and … yeah. – The government was determined that there would not be hundreds or thousands with deaths recorded as a result of Tiananmen, so
they made the parents, to collect the body for a funeral, but made them sign a statement to
say that the child had died in an accident. Otherwise they wouldn’t
release the body. – And so the authorities can now say look here’s the list
of people who actually died at Tiananmen. A couple of hundred maybe, not thousands. – In 1992 Deng Xiaoping again came out and struck a deal with the Chinese people. He said “OK, give us your cooperation. In
exchange we’ll give you your freedom.” Not political freedom, but economic freedom.
Giving us our economic freedom in exchange of our own political freedom,
it’s a lousy deal, it doesn’t make sense, nevertheless the deal has been carried
out. The Chinese people took the deal. – It’s very important for the whole world
to pay attention to what happened thirty years ago. Today’s China comes
from 1989. If you really want to deal with today’s China, you have to understand
where this China comes from, and they come from 1989.

In Philippines it's like Mendiola Massacre during Cory Aquino,… No one speaks about,.. And yet catholic leaders apply her to become saint,. thats why since the time i searched about Cory's demonic reign w/ the supports of catholic leaders,. I told to myself, "believe only in god, not to those demons behind his name". Until not, catholic churches brainwashing us to hate duterte,.

Communists aren't stupid, they know that democracy is like two wolves discussing what they'll have for dinner…. communists don't really believe in communism either…. all communist societies eventually become conservative socially because they need to hold onto power and individualism is a dangerous subversion. That is why our local communists really are idiots because they won't achieve communism…. only a conservative authoritarian state. Republicanism that America tried to build has turned into a buffet of people's money….instead of the classical liberal society it once was….

Wake up Chinese people, learn from history, the white man is racist and wants your country to be liberal democracy so they can control you and take over, barely any of the Chinese in this video can speak English, if you did you would understand more about how evil the west is

What a fool, of course economic freedom and the chance to get rich like most Chinese is better than political freedom, look at the West, we have democracy but still no freedom and all getting poorer and poorer

Give me good life. A decent place of my own with all the modern day luxury. Else give me political freedom so that every now and then there is trouble due to differences of opinion. There is protest. There is rioting like now in Hong Kong. There is chaos now and then in Taiwan parliament when both sides of the political divide turn violent and started a free for all fight. Or better still each student leader decides to carve out a territory and rule as president on his own. China will be broken up into many independent states that even US went to war to prevent breakup in the US civil war of 1861. Now if one president of an independent Chinese state turned Fascist he may want to reunite a fractious China by force USA can start a war with him and create human tragedy worst than what is happening now in Syria and Iraq! Perhaps there is no such tragedy but due to too many political bickering China will stay poor like India and Indonesia. Then the west can start lecturing to a disunited China how to run the different states. Then the world will think that only certain countries are capable of giving good life to their people but not others.

The Philippine goverment should have done this on feb 1986. And Killed those goddamn revolutionist. The revolt hasnt pass on to the people of the Philippines but to a Goddamn single Family and their cronies. Shame.

Have always heard my family talking about major events they were around for, this event in partucular. Absolutely astounding that these students rose up against what almost amounts to a dictatorship by the sounds of it.

The unarmed students at Tiananmen Square were murdered at the hands of their own tyrannical government because of their dream to control their own destiny through democracy. So for those fortunate enough, cherish your liberty and defend it to the death.

When the students were starving at the square, Wuer Kaixi, their leader were eating like a pig. Caught by camera. Lier.What made them believe democracy would be the best way for China anyways. It's funny when the Westerns talk about democracy and human rights. Like it really exists.

man i still get chills over the liberty goddess statue, that takes huge balls especially putting it in front of the face to the communist leaders and its regiment. This truly does mark a turning point to history. I mean yeah the trojan horse was also a landmark, but this is different. And you must feel like a bad ass knowing you were the leader and number 1 china's watch list that made a huge impact and followed by millions. But also sad.. the rage over the bloodshed that you feel you caused

Sleepingdragon 76, You have spent an awful chunk of energy trying to minimize and misdirect. When the CCP admits all of it's shadowy sins in public, it might THEN be worth accepting into the community of normal nations and the company of moral humans, but now…?? All guilty, all enablers and co-criminals. There is no reasonable way to sift out the wheat and chaff; so we hate the lot of you as non-human. You can all drop dead, and no one will feel any sympathy.

I was unaware that these circumstances were even recorded, i.e., known, in this degree of detail. Thank you for the research and video. Democracy is so very fragile, it is too much taken for graned where it iexists.

"People's Liberation" and yet we have college kids running around with the hammer and sickle and che guevara shirts, and "anarcho communists." Because, you know..no communist or socialist movement ever committed mass murder against its own citizens.

I am Russian and I really envy Chinese. Their leaders were brave enough to sacrifice several thousand stupid naive students to save millions of lives and their country. Unlike USSR which lost political stability, then disintegrated and got poverty and civil wars that last till now in Ukraine.

If Tienamen People’s Power succedded, would China b as progressive as it is today???Look at People’s Power did to the Philippines…. It toppled a progressive Marcos regime to a flopped and unsuccessful successors….

China would not be what it is today had the democracy movement taken over China and made it into a mess like the Western countries are going through now with too much total freedom ruining civilizations…Many died while those student leaders who instigated the movement lived to talk on tv…These student leaders will live with a guilty conscience for the rest of their life…

As a Chinese living in China and uk I was wondering how you western people know what exactly happened there? Why a people who really went through this told me: first they thought it was purely a student parade, then the whole stuff became very strange, it evolved western power in it and, Chai ling and other leaders already got green card in us before they started the parade. You western people think your government all tell the truth? Your media all tell the truth? What the hongkong issue told us was that: China has to deal with things in Chinese way, because China doesn’t want to be Syria or Iraq.

China will take South China Sea and blockade Australia into submission! Our students will go to Australia on silent covert missions and form commie political party we will migrate and multiply and someday become your PM of Australia! Whites must pay for their atrocities and become our subjugate! We will rule over Australia! Australia belongs to China! We will sing our anthem and fly our China flags at every corner of your Island!

Now the students in Hong Kong who have had a good life in many ways much better than mainland Chinese and who clearly have no appreciation of that, simply out to make trouble and make demands at the expense of a majority of Hong Kong residents who don't and did not want the troubles stirred up by this bunch of anarchists, will soon have it all taken away from them. Students in Tiananmen Square were not guilt free of atrocities of violence and worse, yet claim they should have been respected when they did little to show respect. Foreign countries should stay out of China's Hong Kong affairs. Gun boat threats and blackmail won't work anymore against a country that has the right to its own laws, it's country, it's Hong Kong territories. I suspect given the fact that this weekend once again students and other anarchists have openly ignored China's warnings to illegally assemble, cause disruption, violence, vandalism knowing and more than aware of, the specialized forces gathered across the border. When they move into Hong Kong and enforce martial law plus I hope they make it clear to those who started the troubles that what goes round, comes round. It's time to teach them that respect is a two way street, not a one way one sided student/anarchists interpretation.

Heartbreaking, u can call them activist but they are heroes that needs to be heard and seen who just want the basic human right, freedom. I cant imagine how many lives are lost and yet still they didnt get what they deserve.

Some wants to trade the 1/2 political freedom for economic freedom!! Wealthy or Ignorant citizens and corrupted officials would say:LOOK CHINA is giving an EVEN better deal!!! Go GRAB that!!But once you grab that deal… huh..hahahaChina… the goverment of 1989…owns you FOREVER!!!

28:57 Those guys are singing the internationale I'm down. I knew that melody was something known by my uncultured mind.

But well… not sure "democracy" would have been possible anyway in China. It is not exactly a way of doing politics that is ingrained in the culture… and Western countries would have definitely not passed such an opportunity to try and gain bits of control over China.

Plus, I'm not sure "democracy" as it is thought in the West is a good way to freedom, as it mostly designates "representative democracy" rather than democracy itself.

After all, "representative democracy" means electing leaders rather than let the people directly handle themselves.

Unfortunately, being in a leading position (aka power position) tends to corrupts humans (it can push them to act in such a manner that they can stay in said position, among other things)

Lastly, people are basically sheep and as a wise man once said : "people will elect those we tell them to elect". (Alexis de Toqueville <- this guy studied in the US before saying this. So I think he knew what "democracy" was all about)

Parent who does not care his own children and shoot them. How can other person expect good from those parent. Likewise the Chinese government does not care of there own people . How other country's expect good from china by doing trade and supporting China

Young people often dream to be the hero of the world, but they forgot a stable society is what was China needed.

One of the downside of any student protest, it is easy out of control and be incited by aggressive motive instant act in a logical way to negotiate or solve the problem in
realistic way. During the process, those leaders tend to go more and more aggressive inorder to maintain their leadership or forced to do so, but the conflict between both parties will eventruly rise.

Please let us look back at the history; Freedom is a sacred word when slaves rase against
Slavery for their people，Democracy is also a sacred world when the country is rule by a

dictator. But those are not China, there are many chinese study or travel around the world and they go back to China. If most people in China are not happy they will not chose to go back, right? " Arab Spring" one of many cases that show any aggressive Changes and done in a such short period time is not a realistic way, at least come with a heavry consequence. I agree the feeling of create a better world is a such beatiful thing from human. But please remenber we need to give it time and carefully make decision thought respect on different culture and history of local people.oh, one more matter, any media without public
supervision either own by government or rish people， there isnot " freedom of press" this thing .( Trump: fake news or facebook collect personal information, in the past?)